Granny Wilmoth’s Easy Scratch Biscuits

Contributed by: David LaFerney

Source: Granny Wilmoth (Sally Almer Wilmoth (Stockton) - Shirley LaFerney’s (Maxwell) Maternal Grandmother

I think Granny Wilmoth made a batch of these biscuits every single day, and they were eaten hot at breakfast and then stayed on the table to be eaten cold all day long, with any leftovers fed to the chickens. It’s a shame that such a simple thing has almost become a lost art.

Method #1 for all of us amateurs:

  • 2 Cups of self-rising flour
  • 4 Tablespoons of shortening
  • 1 cup of milkPreheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the flour in a mixing bowl and add the shortening. Mix until it looks like crumbs. Make a depression in the middle and add the Milk, and mix just until the loose dough comes together, but no longer, than you have to. Over mixing will make your biscuits tough.

    Method #2 for Grandmas and other experts

    Mixing bowl 1/2 full of flour

    4 Tablespoons of shortening (experts don’t need to measure they just know)

    1 cup of milk (again measuring is for sissies)

    Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Make a depression in the middle of the flour. Put the shortening and milk into the depression. Use your fingers to gently mix the liquid around in the depression, you don’t want to mix it with all of the flour in the bowl just work the liquid around there in the middle until a loose dough forms. When it is solid, enough for you to pick it up you are done.  There isn’t really a set recipe, you just have to know what it is supposed to look like.

    Turn out dough onto a floured surface and sprinkle flour on top of the dough with your hands so that you can work with it without it sticking to everything. Use your floured hands to pat the dough out into a thin layer about 1/2 thick. Using a Campbell’s soup can with both ends cut out, cut your biscuits out by pressing straight down through the dough and then twisting after the cutter bottoms out. Place the biscuits on a greased baking sheet or iron pan with the sides just touching.

    Bake in a 450-degree oven until golden brown.

    Tips:

  • 1) Always preheat the oven before putting any recipe in it.
  • 2) Word on the street is that buttermilk will make lighter biscuits, but I never tried it.
  • 3) If you place the biscuits on the sheet 1/2 inches apart, they will cook up wider and brown on the sides.

    • Jones :: Aug.14.2007 :: Bread ::

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